Institutionalized
by hulksicle
Summary: Tony Stark may have survived fighting the Chitauri and Loki but now he must over come his own personal demons. The Avengers are determined to stop Tony from drinking himself into an early grave. Tony!Steve Science!Bros Movie!Verse
1. Chapter 1

"We're worried about you Tony." Steve's face was turned down in a disappointed frown, and lines of worry and concern marred his brow. Tony would never forgive himself if those lines remained; the smooth forehead of Captain America ruined because of him. Of course the public would never know, Steve's costume covered his high forehead, but Tony would. This beautiful man was worried about him, and fuck did Tony Stark need a drink to work through that. "Tony, please."

It must have shown on his face because Steve's eyebrow knotted even closer together, turning his brow into a mountain range. Even now Tony was contemplating the quickest way to forget this instance. He'd mix himself something ludicrously strong before hitting the town. He'd head down to one of those overpriced fancy night clubs where the lines stretched down the block. He wouldn't have any trouble getting in; maybe he'd buy the joint just for fun. He'd head to the VIP lounge with some cute little thing he picked up at the bar and order the most expensive champagne they had. He'd have Pepper send a car to pick them up later. Back at home the party would start all over again.

Tony sighed. It wasn't like that anymore though. He wasn't some play boy billionaire who bought clubs on a frivolous whim. He'd never make it out Stark Tower, and he'd certainly pass out before he got a girl back home. He couldn't remember the last time he'd successfully picked up a woman. After things had ended with Pepper he'd completely fallen apart, not to say that he hadn't been falling apart for most of the duration of their relationship. Saving the world only impresses a girl so many times before she starts to realize that a hero who can't save himself isn't much of a hero. And how was he supposed to bring home a girl with Steve living here?

Tony looked back up at Steve and Bruce. Steve's face hadn't budged at all and Tony couldn't bear the expression he wore anymore. He shifted his gaze to the man next to the tall blonde. Bruce was the opposite of Steve entirely. He looked uncomfortable with the entire situation, his eyes were locked on his shoes and he kept scratching at the back of his neck like he had an itch he couldn't soothe. He was shorter than Steve by almost a head and his build was softer. The man was pretty unassuming when the Hulk wasn't at the wheel, timid even.

"What about you Bruce?" Tony asked, "Don't you have two cents to add?" His voice was snappish and Bruce's eyes met his in shock. Tony shrugged inwardly; when avoiding the situation doesn't work the best defense is a good offense. Bitchy confrontational Tony always made it out on top, or at least he used to.

"I agree with the Cap on this one Tony." Bruce's voice was quiet and he looked away a bit as he said it but he was serious and met Stark's gaze once more to add, "I think you've got a problem Stark."

"I've got a problem?" Tony laughed, "What about you? What about both of you? I'm not the only one on this team with problems, maybe you should solve your own before you try to fix mine." He stormed off then, his heart pounding under the arc reactor in his chest.


	2. Chapter 2

Clint liked high places. He was an archer after all and he appreciated having the high ground. He wasn't particularly close with any of the other Avengers yet, save for Natasha who had talked him into moving into Stark Tower, and so he also appreciated the solitude of his current perch. The tower was still under reconstruction, which was moving faster than he'd expected but still not complete, and he had settled down on an iron beam which protruded several meters from the side of the building. From there he could see a vast expanse of the city as well as into Tony's personal space on the top floor.

The area was sealed off with plastic tarps and half-finished window installations. The Avengers were all welcome at Stark's bar and the top floor served as a sort of gargantuan living room even in its half destroyed state. Clint wasn't in the habit of spying, that was Tasha's gig, but he couldn't help but over hear the conversation between Tony, Bruce and Steve. Well as much as one can hear over the wind at such a height. Clint waited until Steve left the room before re-entering the building through one of the tarps.

"Hey." Bruce jumped at the sound of Clint's voice and spun around. "Oh, whoops." Bruce's face contorted in a mix of fear and anger. Clint began to back towards the opening in the tarp he'd just come through.

"It's," Bruce put a hand to his head and breathed deeply several times. "It's fine. I'm fine." He looked up at Clint, his eyes were calm and he looked a bit embarrassed. "You just scared me."

Clint nodded and moved toward the bar, keeping his eyes on Dr. Banner, the guy was nice enough but completely unpredictable. He felt bad for the guy, and more than that he felt bad for liking Hulk more than the good doctor himself. It had seemed to Clint that Bruce and his big green alter ego were like two separate beings. Clint just didn't really click with Banner, but he'd fought with Hulk. Hulk was still unpredictable and Clint wasn't sticking around when Banner lost his cool, but he had a feeling that Hulk was more upset at being locked up inside Bruce than anything else.

He grabbed a decanter of some amber liquor and took off the stopper. He sniffed at the contents; brandy. "You want one doc?" he asked as he poured himself a drink.

"Never touch the stuff," Banner shook his head, "Gives the other guy a bit of a push forward."

"Mean drunk huh?" Clint took a sip from his glass, "I know all about those."

"It isn't exactly the same, I don't think."

"True." Clint gestured to him with the beverage, "You would make one hell of a bar fight." He finished off the liquor in his glass and poured another. "Tony Stark sure does know his spirits." He said as he took a sip, slower this time, savoring the taste.

"He's a bit too familiar with them."

"Yeah, I heard your conversation."

"Spying on us Hawk?"

"I was trying to find some peace and quiet actually. Apparently even that safety beam wasn't secluded enough, who ever thought living in a place like this would be so crowded?"

"Mmm," Bruce chuckled, "It is a tight fit isn't it?"

"I'll say," Clint drained his glass a second time. "Ever since Mr. Big Shot Norse God came back from over the rainbow it's been a real party." Bruce laughed again, "But I don't think the close quarters is really helping Stark any."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean he drinks more now than he ever did; well than he has recently anyway." Clint grabbed a beer out of the mini fridge behind the bar; never have more than two cocktails in a row that was his motto. "Pepper said so herself."

"You're spying on Pepper now too?" Bruce tried to make it sound like a jest but Hawkeye heard the accusation in his words.

"Actually Tasha told me, and Pepper told her." Clint sat on the top of the bar counter, "In confidence I expect, but I doubt you're going to rat me out."

"I guess not."

"Still Bruce, I wonder, do you guys want Tony to get better? Or are you just worried he'll be problem for the team?"

"What?"

"Don't ask how you can get him to stop drinking, ask why he does in the first place." Clint hopped off the bar and grabbed the decanter and two clean glasses. "This isn't the 1940's anymore and Steve is completely out of his element here. He doesn't know how to deal with Tony's drinking problem anymore than Tony knows how to live without his tech."

"Don't you find this a little ironic? You lecturing me about how to deal with Tony's alcoholism while you're sitting here getting drunk."

Clint hit the button for the elevator and the doors opened immediately. "Got to love private elevators," he got in and turned to Bruce, "I'm not saying I'm a role model Banner."

The doors closed and Clint rested his forehead against the cold metal. Right now he needed Tasha and a few more drinks. _All of those people, I killed all of those people._


	3. Chapter 3

Clint found Tasha in her room. It was a large and luxuriously furnished affair. Natasha hadn't redecorated her allotted space since they'd moved into Stark Tower though all of the other members had. Clint's stomach clenched as he recognized Tasha's trademark aversion to permanence. She hated putting down roots; chances were she was already planning her departure from the team.

She looked up from the gun she was cleaning and gave Clint a small smile.

"Brandy?" he asked. She nodded an affirmative and set the firearm on the bedside table.

He handed her a glass and poured her a drink. Then sat on the edge of the bed and poured himself one, filling the glass almost to the brim; the nature of the visit was not comforting as he had hoped but rather made him feel anxious. He looked at her and noticed how she reservedly sipped her beverage. She raised an eyebrow as they he made eye contact.

"So what's this all about?" She gestured to the beer and smiled at him.

Clint knew that smile. He'd seen it before, many times, the most recent being Budapest. He pined for that smile, but tonight it turned his clenched stomach into a knot. It was always like that; they got close and then something happened or one of them left. She knew she'd leave, knew how it would hurt him and yet here she was giving him that smile. He found himself staring at the bottom of the glass quicker than he would have liked.

"Nothing," he said standing to leave, the room shifted slightly as he stood but he maintained his footing. "Never mind Tasha."

"Clint,"

"What?"

"Are you alright?" Her question seemed so pointless to Clint. Of course he wasn't alright.

"No."

"Do you want to stay with me tonight?"

"No." He walked out of the room, taking the bottle and empty glass with him. He ran into Tony in the kitchen.

It was the main dining area for the Avenger's. A large but not overly complicated domestic type kitchen built on a floor midway between all of their quarters. Tony was nursing a sport bottle full of Coke that Clint suspected wasn't all cola.

"Mind topping me off?" Tony asked waggling the bottle in the air and confirming Clint's suspicions.

"Yeah sure, say when." He began pouring.

"When," Tony said. The bottle now filled to the brim and Clint's decanter running rather low.

He grabbed a larger glass from the cupboards and filled it with some of Stark's Coke and about half of the remaining spirits. Clint clinks his cup against Tony's bottle in a mock toast.

"So I hear you have a drinking problem."


	4. Chapter 4

Steve took the stairs.

Yeah, the stairs, all the way to the lobby entrance of Stark Tower.

He needed time to think and walking down that many flights of stairs takes as much time as you might think. Tony's drinking problem was getting out of hand. He hadn't noticed it at first, thinking that Stark was just celebrating the recent victory. But a typical post victory air of celebration did not last as long as Stark's most recent bout of drinking. This was becoming a daily occurrence.

Stark woke up in the morning with a hangover and went to bed with a black out.

When he didn't drink he was irritable and green around the gills. "You look worse than the big guy over here," Hawkeye had mused, (earning him some cracked ribs from Hulk which later found Clint comforting a rather dismayed Bruce Banner).

But all jokes aside, there was something seriously wrong with Tony Stark.

Cap could see it in his work. The perfection and pride Tony put into his work and performance as Iron Man was fading away. He was sluggish and mean, sloppy and slow, and when a man lets his team down the consequences could be terrible. Captain America was sure of that. He worried not only about Tony but about the other Avengers as well.

Tony Stark wasn't just an important weapon in battle. He was the heart of the team.

It was true that Cap was better suited to liaise between S.H.I.E.L.D. and the Avengers, he had more experience in battle and strategy and he was level headed, but they followed Tony. He was pure charisma and charm. Even people who hated him liked him. The man had offered Loki a drink mid invasion for God's sake.

They needed him.

Steve walked through the gleaming lobby of Stark Tower, waving good bye to the security and receptionists, and outside to hail a cab. He gave the driver the address for SHIELD headquarters and leaned back in his seat to mull things over. The last thing he wanted to do was ask Fury for help on this. He knew that the Avengers were no longer technically under SHIELD command, hell Stark funded everything, but he couldn't think of anyone else that Tony would have to listen to. Of course Stark would probably reward him for the attempt at helping him with a repulsor blast to the nuts.

Steve decided he could live with that.


	5. Chapter 5

Tasha frowned at her closed door. Clint had just left. He'd come in, poured her a drink and left. Usually she had to pry him off of her with a crowbar or threaten to kill him before he'd stop badgering her. Hell even attempts on his life didn't always dissuade him. Not to mention how quickly he'd gone through that glass of brandy. He'd always been a beer guy leaving the hard stuff to her since "Vodka is like breast milk in your country right?"

He just hadn't been the same since Loki's mind control. They hadn't really spoken about it much since the battle. She wasn't good at that sort of thing. Hell he wasn't good at that sort of thing either. She wondered if it bothered him terribly. They'd both killed people before, after all that was the job description of an assassin, but this time had been different. The people who had died in this instance were SHIELD agents and civilians.

Friends and colleagues that he'd known for years had died; innocent people that hadn't any need to die. She pondered for a moment if it would have bothered her as much as it appeared to be bothering Clint and decided that there was really no way of knowing unless it happened. She wondered if she'd be able to handle a mission after something like that; she wondered if Clint could.

He was currently on medical leave, which was SHIELD's roundabout way of saying they were making him take some time off to get his shit together because no matter how fine he said he was the people who knew him could tell something was wrong. They'd run all the tests and he'd passed them. The tesseract was no longer controlling him and there didn't seem to be any side effects. The psych evaluations had turned up nothing unusual. No signs of PTSD or anything like that, but Tasha knew better.

She might be the spy but that didn't make Clint any less of an accomplished liar. He had to be in order to keep up with her. He'd gotten close enough to take her out when they'd first met. And the man knew how to take pain. She'd seen him break his entire hand and keep a straight face. Tasha didn't believe the reports, and apparently neither did Clint.

"_Are you okay?"_

"_No."_

She finished her glass and made her decision. This wasn't going to do. She was going to have to find a way to fix this. Even if it meant having awkward, _Hawkward?, _conversations about his feelings. The door closed with a resounding bang as if to signal the finality of her decision and the Black Widow slinked down the hallfind her prey.


	6. Chapter 6

Tony Stark did not like to be fucked. He liked sex and he liked doing the fucking, but he did not like it when people turned him around, bent him over and fucked him. Which was exactly what Steve was doing right now by calling the fury of Fury down on him. He was good and truly fucked.

Fury didn't do gentle but Tony was pretty sure he didn't need to be restrained by two SHIELD AGENTS when Fury walked in and told him he was headed for rehab. Maybe one, but definitely not two, two was overkill for sure. There were raised voices and a few punches thrown as Fury issued his ultimatum to Stark.

"I do not trust an alcoholic behind the metaphorical wheel of Iron Man." Fury snapped his fingers and the agents let go of Tony. "You might fund this team Stark but I am not the United States government. I WILL take your tech and I WILL throw your ass in a cell if you try to make more. You are compromised. It's rehab or the bench Stark, your choice."

"You can't bench me!" Stark yelled, his was voice full of outrage, and slurred slightly as he displayed how good and truly sauced he was. "I'm fucking IRON MAN."

"And I'm the director or SHIELD, take his tech." Fury spoke into his ear piece and looked at Tony. "Checkmate."

Anyone who knew Tony knew what he was like when he was angry and when he was drunk. Few people however, knew what he was like when he was angry and drunk because when Tony Stark was angry and drunk you got the fuck out of the way. Otherwise you were likely to become collateral damage. Tonight was no exception to this rule. Clint barely managed to grab Tony before he lunged at the director. Stark was vicious in his anger and had Clint unfairly matched in size but as it turns out an assassin as talented was formidable even when unarmed and shit faced.

That didn't stop him from taking an elbow to the face though. He quickly returned it with a crushing blow to Tony's insole and the side of his head. Stark dropped and knelt on the floor chest heaving and blood dripping from a split eyebrow.

"Cuff him." Fury said, and the two goons approached Tony only to be stopped by Clint.

"It's fine. Leave him, just leave him Fury." Clint stepped in front of the figure on the floor arms spread to the sides slightly in a universal gesture for 'back the fuck off.'

"He's still grounded until something is done about this."

"Well we'll figure it out ourselves ok?" Clint shook his head. "You don't need to come in here and spirit people off to rehab director. We can deal with our own problems."

Fury sighed, "Never expected that to come from you. Just try to work out your own while you're hammering out the dents in his armor."

"My tech," Tony called as Fury turned to leave. "You can't take my tech. You can't."

"Worried we'll steal something Stark?" Fury shrugged at Clint's raised eyebrows and sarcastic smirk. "Fine, I'll send your pal Rhodey to pick it up in the morning. Until then your labs are on lockdown, for your own good."

"My own good, yeah you sound so concerned about my own goddamn good." He got shakily to his feet, "fuck you."

"Good night gentleman."

When Fury was gone Stark proceeded to walk over to the bar and help himself to an entire bottle of tequila. Things were never good when Stark broke out the tequila. He then proceeded to somehow get even more stinking drunk than he was before Fury's visit and Clint let him. He stopped Steve and Tasha from interfering knowing that JARVIS would put an end to it before Tony was in danger. The AI was programmed to protect Tony's life and even though Clint had no idea how JARVIS would do it there was no doubt in his mind that Tony was safe. He needed to vent, to get it all out now, because in the morning he was going to have to make a choice. And after Tony Stark made that choice there would be no comfort for him at the bottom of a bottle anymore.


	7. Chapter 7

Good people sometimes do bad things. Thor knew this better than most. He had done things he was not proud of. Things that he dared not even speak of to his dear friends the Avengers. He had blood on his hands, all the life lessons learned and all the soul searching trips to New Mexico weren't going to absolve him of his sins.

He also knew that he was not defined by his transgressions. He proved that every time he gripped Mjlonir's handle and was found worthy. Now he fought to protect Asgard and Midgard both and knew in his heart that he would never be the rash man he'd once been. For Thor that was something he could live with. Unfortunately his comrades Hawkeye and the Man of Iron did not share his conviction.

Though he had known Clint for a short while only, Thor knew him to be a good man. He was cocksure and mouthy but he was a good man and a fierce warrior. Clint was an assassin but he was also a protector. He justified what he did by accepting it as the way he could help, the way he could make the world a safer place, albeit through shady means. The Avengers was a good fit for Clint, although teamwork was a new concept to him. Loki had done him a great evil by forcing Clint's hand in the murder of innocents. _And friends, _Thor thought sadly, _Good people doing bad things._ Not that Clint would ever see his brother in that light; it was hard for even the most objective people to see the good in Loki anymore.

Tony, however, was worse. Thor could not say what it was that haunted the man, perhaps it was no one thing, but it haunted him closely casting a shadow around him. He tried to drown it in drink but it remained, lingering, waiting until he could no longer ignore it; then he'd just try harder to drown it out. Thor hadn't noticed at first though. No, he'd missed it at first.

After the battle of New York Thor had taken Loki back home to face trial with a heavy heart, and was gone for upwards of a month. When Loki's judgment was given, when Odin had had his say and the law had been fulfilled Thor had left. Staying was to him like salt in a fresh wound, and so he returned to Stark Tower with the other Avengers who had begun moving in.

He had found a merry companion in Stark whose festivities were both often and welcome in their distraction. Thor had not realized the problem at first, light hearted in his own merriment. Humans have a slightly different relationship with drink than the Aesir and it was not obvious to him. By the time he realized that Tony was over doing it the problem had gotten quite serious. Steve had used words like enabler, and said things like "don't encourage him" which in retrospect made Thor cringe with understanding. That Tony had been able to keep up with Thor for so long in itself was a red flag. It was wrong, it was all really wrong.

His thoughts were interrupted when he entered the shared kitchen only to trip over the object of his pondering. Tony gave a grunt as Thor's foot collided with his stomach, the force flipping him onto his back. Thor caught his balance before he fell onto of the unconscious man only to come within inches of stepping on Clint. He whirled about, doing a good impression of an Asgardian ballet dancer and came face to face with The Widow.

"Is this a kitchen or an obstacle course?" Tasha stood there hands on hips, playful smile dancing on her lips; a smile which danced right off her face when she saw Clint lying dangerously close to a puddle of vomit. It was the first of many to be found and cleaned after Tony's last binge. Puke scavenger hunts were not uncommon in the tower these days.

With the skill of a woman trained to endure almost anything she grabbed Clint and hauled him onto her shoulders in a fireman's carry. He let out a soft moan but didn't wake up.

"You might want to grab Stark." She said lightly, "my hands are a little full."

Thor nodded and scooped Tony up in a style more suited to carrying a sleeping child than a full grown man who smelled like a distillery. Tasha's smile returned at the sight and she gave Thor a nod as she left to return her hawk to his nest.

Thor looked down at the man in his arms. His olive skin was pale and his face was dark with stubble. His features contorted with either the pain of his hangover or a nightmare. He was in possibly the safest place he ever could be in the Thunderer's embrace and yet he was troubled still. Thor cradled his teammate closer to his chest and made his way to Tony's private chambers.


End file.
